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Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Dinner at Victoria & Albert's

This is a posting for all those foodies out there!

I will admit, I love a meal at a very good restaurant - I love the unusual food combinations, the ingredients I'd never think to put together, the presentation, the service, all of it. Some people complain that the portions are too small at high-end restaurants, but I love it because I get to try more things!!

A few weeks ago I got to take a family trip to Walt Disney World, and they have a restaurant there in the Grand Floridian Hotel called Victoria and Albert's. We've actually been there several times, it is an excellent restaurant you wouldn't expect at a family-oriented resort and yes, it's expensive, but worth the special trip when you are at Disney if you are a foodie of any sort. They only have 2 seatings a night because the dinners are several courses, and they offer wine pairings if you like with each course. There is also a chef's table in the kitchen which offers a tasting menu which we've done in the past. All of it is AWESOME!

New for our visit though, was the Queen Victoria's Room, which is a separate room within the restaurant, behind closed doors, that only contains 4 tables and provides French gueridon service. That means table-side finishings for courses by highly trained waiters. So naturally I said, WANT!!! And signed us up for a reservation!

This is a picture from the website of the Queen Victoria room at the restaurant. The two tables you see there were pushed together for our reservation. That little side table next to the tables is where the waiters do the finishing touches for the French gueridon service. We had a lovely couple serving us - they were married and foodies themselves - they told us they plan their vacations around what kinds of meals they can get! We knew at that point we were in good hands for the evening. And yes, it was all evening - our reservation was for 5:30pm and we didn't stumble out of there until after 10pm that night.

That night I took pictures of every course, so here goes - a picture with the description of what it is (and you can double-click the pic to see a larger view)!

And finally, some gourmet chocolates which they kindly boxed up for us since at this point we were perilously close to the Monty Python sketch about the diner who eats a disgustingly huge meal, but then actually explodes after the waiter convinces him to finish it off with a "wafer-thin mint".

And since we had some birthdays, they also gave us a little date-nut bread as a treat as well to take home!

One of the best things about the night was drinking a different wine/alcohol pairing with each course and knowing that all we had to do was stumble back to our rooms in the same hotel! Yay for that!!!!

Every bite was delicious, I'd do it again in a second!!

Overall, I'd have to say it's one of the most wonderful dining experiences I've had!! What really makes a place like this though is the service and they do a great job of that at Victoria and Albert's. I will go again in a second the next time I have a Disney trip!!!

3 comments:

Yes, it was beyond amazing!!! Ten courses with the most exquisite food and wine parings. They also gave each of us elegant personalized printed menus of what we dined on. Our third set now, I believe. You really need to book this restaurant exactly 6 months to the day before going or the tables will be gone!!

This is an excellent recap of a spectacular meal!! The only thing missing was having five waiters following you in a line perfectly in step (like the Marx Brothers) as you went to the bathroom. Seriously, it doesn't get any better than this!